If
by Nocturnea
Summary: "Instead of being grateful for the lives we did save, we are haunted by the ones we failed to. Even me..."Being a tactician is a huge responsibility- is it perhaps too huge for young Robin? Rated T for character death.


Based on my first playthrough of Awakening, sort of (I'm altering death times and pretending I had managed to recruit Gaius). Bends and breaks canon a bit. And also, I'm trying not to state the avatar's gender at all so they can be any avatar design. Well, any build 2 avatar design since I describe their height. If yours is build 1 or 3, then they can just be a shorter version of yours.

Also, this is partially inspired by If~I wish from Da Capo II.

Well anyway on with the one-shot!

Disclaimer: Fire Emblem series does not belong to me. I take a few teensy liberties in terms of canon sometimes, but it still doesn't belong to me.

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Robin looked out the bedroom window onto the cheerful festival below. Even though Ylisstol had taken a lot of damage, the people had found time to celebrate the anniversary of the war's end. Chrom was celebrating as well, albeit for a different reason; his advisors (namely, Frederick and Robin plus a few scholars he didn't know the names of) had deemed the country to be in a state economically stable enough that the anticipation of a royal wedding could safely be addressed. All that was just a collection of big words meaning that Chrom could finally get married.

While Chrom and Sumia were off doing lovey-dovey things Robin couldn't fully fathom, their friend and tactician was sitting by a window thinking of other things this occasion brought to mind. Namely, the war between Ylisse and Plegia that had, as previously mentioned, ended exactly a year before.

The short-statured, cloak wearing strategist heaved a sigh to rival Cordelia's.

"I thought I was forgetting... But is that really what I should do? I've forgotten so much already, so you'd think I'd appreciate having any memories at all to hold on to..." Robin laughed bitterly.

"When I think of it, I've been hiding this whole time. From the memories, from the sadness... But most of all from them." Robin's dark eyes wandered to the drawings of the Shepherds from what seemed like aeons ago. In a way, the tactician supposed it HAD been ages since then. After all, it had been an entire war since those days when they would all hang around the barracks and make friendly quips as they trained.

A year turned into two soon enough, and the tactician was once again caught up in a war. In that time, the Shepherds recruited quite a few remarkable people, but lost quite a few as well. A part of Robin's mind screamed that it wasn't fair, but mostly the young strategist was consumed with regret and guilt. '_If I had been a better tactician, things would have been different... If I had been a better fighter I could have protected some of them at least... If... If..._'

Robin's mind flew to the people who had died so close by. The first one had been Stahl, slain by an arrow that had, ironically, hit him in the back of his neck when he turned around in response to Robin warning him about the arrow. It had felt very much like the world was plainly slapping a certain strategist in the face.

Next had been Vaike, who Robin had only found out about at the end of the battle. An enemy Dark Mage had gotten dangerously close to the Exalt, but Vaike had taken the blast for her before killing the attacker and almost immediately dropping dead himself.

Then came the Exalt herself, and her Pegasus Knights. Robin didn't so much feel the blame for Phila, seeing as nobody could have predicted Aversa summoning Risen. But Emmeryn, on the other hand... Emmeryn was a different story. Robin felt the guilt more intensely than for any other, even Stahl. Especially since Chrom's depression following her death had cast such a gloomy aura over the army that they had almost been annihilated, and would have if it weren't for Emmeryn's final blessing. In short, the Shepherds and indeed the army of Regna Ferox had been saved by the person Robin couldn't. The tactician felt a great degree of self hatred for that, even a whole two years later.

Next had been Anna, who had fallen to an axe on the ship to Valm while buying Lucina time to get to the enemy general and help her father win the battle. The redheaded merchant had proved true the saying that one never knows what one has until it's gone; though the Shepherds had always seemed to find her mildly annoying, she was sorely missed.

'_How many more will die before this war is over? Somehow, I'm beginning to doubt my resolve to even kill Walhart..._' The strategist mused, a sad smile ghosting onto a face that seemed to have seen everything. '_No. I must apologize to Emmeryn one day for my inability to keep believing in exemplifying peace, but... I'm a tactician. Pacifism doesn't work for me, and right now it doesn't seem like it'll work for the world either. Still, all these ifs are driving me crazy... That's the weight of being a tactician; even the blood of my allies stains my hands..._'

Standing back on Origin Peak, Robin felt the sensation returning. Not only had there been many more casualties (seeing as they had gone through what was dangerously close to being the end of the world)— there had also been something much worse. Something that promised to once again kill and destroy, that might actually end the world in another millennium. Grima, the Fell Dragon, would be coming back. '_And it's my fault. I could have finished this cycle, made it so that Chrom's descendants don't have to just keep "killing" Grima every thousand years. I could have made it so that no more people have to lose homes and loved ones, so that never again will we have to face the fear of the world ending, and... and so that never again will there be someone sitting on a rock like this and counting off what-ifs._' Robin thought of Olivia and Nowi, both of whom had lost their lives getting the Pegasus Knight Cynthia to safety. Gaius, who had been preparing to confess his love to the shy dancer, had hated the tactician— but not for very long, seeing as he died defending the archer Noire not too much later. Noire herself had almost died while they were rescuing Inigo, another time-traveller; the orange-haired mercenary hadn't taken the news of his parents' deaths in this timeline very well, going into a very short-lived state of depression before taking a Silver Lance for Noire. Shortly after that, they had met Aversa, who had expressed a desire to change and redeem herself, but she had been killed mere days later in a battle with Risen who had allied themselves with the mysteriously-still-alive Walhart.

All of their faces and voices haunted Robin, forced the tactician to hang on to every increasingly distant memory of them. The more Robin remember, the more what-ifs came, and the less the strategist registered the speech Chrom was giving the other Shepherds in the outside world.

Robin vaguely recognized Chrom walking over to Sumia and Lucina. Gaze wandering around, a certain pair of Dark Mages caught the young tactician's eye. '_My family. If Gaius and Olivia had survived, then they'd have probably started one too. Stahl mentioned having a brother as well, and I've heard Vaike was like a brother to all the kids in his hometown..._'

Looking at Morgan, Henry, and Tharja smiling (not that Henry ever stopped smiling, and not that Tharja would ever NOT be happy at Robin not dying, and not that Morgan would ever be unhappy at getting more parent-child time with both parents), Robin couldn't help but smile back.

'_Well, if I could have changed my decisions retroactively, what then? I'd have let myself die? Maybe, but... at least for now, we have a future. And I know a few people for who my being in that future will be worth more than a thousand what-ifs._'

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Thanks for reading! Please tell me if you liked it! It's mostly just a little thought that's been poking around in my head for awhile, but I have an idea for a sequel so let me know if you want to see it! Have a nice day/night/sometime-in-between!


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